FIRST LADIES

PROLOGUE

Tick.

THE BULLET SOUNDS as it twists inside the gun in the hand of the person standing across from me. The steel of my own gun is cold in my hand but not nearly as cold as the eyes staring back at me.

This never was supposed to happen.

I think of the past, back to the times when we used to dream of the day we would leave the place that has taken so much from us and move into a mansion somewhere in the hills. I think of the day we met and how bright I smiled, happy to finally have someone who truly understood me without me even having to say a word. I think of the moment everything changed and how lost I felt as that change grew into something that changed me too and has led to this very moment.

Tick.

The bullet sounds again as it twists for the second time, getting closer to escaping the gun it sits in. I swallow as my heart pounds while trying to simultaneously think and refrain my hand from shaking.

A year ago, I never would've touched a gun knowing all too well the damage they cause both physically and emotionally. But as I stand here, I can't move. I don't know what will happen if I do, and I don't know what will happen if I put my own gun down.

Tick.

As our eyes never leave each other's, I search for the person I use to know, someone I loved. I want to say something but I can't speak, I don't know what would be the right thing to say. But I know we both are too far gone now for any sentimental shit to phase either of us enough to make us put our weapons down. The trust is gone. And from the look in those eyes, I fear the love is gone too.

I guess I should be pleading for my life, but as I continue to think, I think of how fucked up life is and has been for the both of us. 

Life took my father away from me. He had dreams, hopes, a woman and a daughter who loved him. But life sure had no problem taking his. Breaking mine and my mother's heart in the process. He was only twenty-two. But maybe death isn't as bad as people make it seem. At least then you're free from pain, and mistreatment, and most importantly life fucking you over anyway.

I think of my father and how soft I thought his hands always were every time he held mine. I remember his smile, I have the same one. I remember his eyes, I have them too. I remember his blood as it stained our brand new white couch. His brown eyes staring up to Heaven as he laid there, I remember that too. Thinking of him hurts.

Tick.

I wish I could go back in time and change things. Bring my daddy back and tell the people in my life what they mean to me, then none of this would have happened. But I can't.

I can't erase the past, and I can't erase this.

If I were to die, my last thought would be of how power became a drug that I unconsciously became addicted to along with its evil twin, revenge. Both have turned me into someone that even I don't know anymore. And both have led to this very moment. But they were just chasers to numb the true source of my problem. Love.

I succumbed to it, drowned in it, even carry its name. Then I watched it slowly turned to hate. Driving me to become the person I am now. No longer daddy's little girl, I have now turned to the very thing that took my father away. I know he'd be ashamed of me....I'm ashamed of me too. But its too late to stop it now as I stand behind a gun and in front of one, prepared to take my last breath all for the sake of it.

I look down at the gun in my own hands thinking about how this all started and where we went wrong.

Pow.